By Daniel Marcos, CEO of Growth Institute
It is not possible to generalize about the crisis we are going through today, as it has not had the same impact on all industries: electronic commerce, online education, telecommunications have grown considerably while others, such as restaurants, suffered a decline. negative impact.
At the beginning of this month, the National Chamber of the Restaurant and Seasoned Food Industry (Canirac) registered the definitive closure of 90 thousand restaurants in the country, derived from the pandemic. A large part of those that continue to operate registered a drop in their sales of between 60 and 80 percent (Konfío).
So how can a restaurant survive, continue to operate, and even scale in this crisis context?
To find out, I spoke to Luis Vázquez, a small restaurateur who owns the Takesabroso taqueria in Boca del Río, Veracruz. I met him a few years ago, when he was going through the bankruptcy of his second business and looking to learn to do things differently. Currently, his taqueria has managed to double its profits and increase its profitability.
The success of Luis Vázquez is not only due to the food, but to a clear content strategy. In 2017, he opened the social networks of his restaurant and focused on generating the marketing that would allow him to reach his potential customers. Later, with the support of his team, he made an unusual video parody with footage from the movie Avengers: Endgame. To his surprise, the video went viral with more than 6 million views in Mexico and the United States, earning him an appearance in Time Magazine and even receiving recognition from the film’s directors.
After this gigantic success, Luis decided to capitalize on it to the maximum, so he focused on creating more similar content that would allow him to capture his market and convert it into potential customers. Soon more viral videos arrived which increased his popularity and made him famous as “Uncle Take”.
“Before what was about us on the Internet was something simple, now there are so many newspapers, national and regional news and television that I have already lost count. The taqueria is already known, that is the important thing ”, commented Luis.
Before the pandemic, Luis had about 22,000 followers on his restaurant’s networks; Today, it has more than 350,000, without investing a peso in advertising.
His first viral video was not “a stroke of luck”, much less the growth that followed. For any business or company to scale, it needs a well-defined strategy and operational efficiency that allows it to manage that escalation or in this case, take advantage of an avalanche of advertising and not end up being absorbed.
Luis’s story shows us that the most important thing to scale, in any industry, is having control or proper administration, knowing the market and focusing on what the business needs.
Regarding the management of the business, Luis focused on having a strict control over his cash, today he has a unique collection system that allows him to know how each peso is moving and what is being spent and has allowed him to have a cash flow of at least 6 months to inject it to your growth. You have invested in the infrastructure of your restaurant without resorting to loans or credits that could put your profitability at risk. He searched for how to digitize through online payments and QR codes. He focused on the development of his team because he knows that they are a fundamental part of scaling his business, now he trains them and delegates them the tasks in which they are better than him. “You don’t know everything, without a team you are nobody. The figure of the boss has already died, today I have learned the value of my team ”, he affirmed.
Luis is a self-taught entrepreneur who, after experiencing bankruptcy, is now very clear about the great goal of his business. Now it seeks to grow the “Takesabroso” brand through merchandise and with new establishments. He has rejected investment and franchise offers, knowing that he has a lot to learn as a leader before accepting and moving to the next level.
Luis’s story helps us understand that in an environment negatively impacted by the crisis, marked by informality, with poorly prepared business leaders who do not know their market or have rigorous control of their business, the most important thing to scale is discipline and ingenuity, regardless of the industry.
Crises are like big fires in a forest: the smallest or least prepared companies are taken first, so we need leaders of all industries to be prepared for what may come in 2021.
Are you ready to scale your business in 2021?
Scale with advice at the Intensive Scaling Up Workshop, next January 26 and 27. A 2-day virtual workshop for leaders of growing companies looking to triple scale and dominate their industry by 2021.
Find out all the details here:
